


Portraits of St. Bartholomew

by sakuuya



Category: Battle for London in the Air (Roleplay)
Genre: (sort of), F/M, Marital Strife, Post-Canon, Serial Killers, flaying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 09:50:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18588793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuuya/pseuds/sakuuya
Summary: In 1911, Dr. Jhandir is called to the Manhattan-in-the-Air coroner’s office to help with a case, but the body he finds there is much too familiar for his liking.





	1. Chapter 1

Dr. Jhandir was dressed and waiting when the police car pulled up to his house, and he opened his door just as the officer raised his hand to knock.

“Good morning, Captain Hughes. I’ve been expecting you,” Dr. Jhandir said, extending a hand.

Captain Neil Hughes wore a glove on his right hand, while the other was bare—an unusually bold fashion statement for a police captain. Or it would be, if the doctor didn’t know that the glove hid a mechanical hand. Hughes lost his hand saving a child from a runaway tram or some such thing that, in addition to getting him promoted to captain, had meant that the police department had tapped no less eminent a surgeon than Dr. Jhandir himself to attach the new prosthetic. Hughes was therefore young for a police captain, and he pumped Dr. Jhandir’s arm with the vigor of youth.

“It’s good to see you again, doctor,” Hughes said once he finally let go. “Well, I say ‘good,’ but boy, I wish the circumstances were different.”

“Indeed. Is the body at your precinct?” Every time he went there (always at Hughes’ invitation, and always to assist with a case involving mechanical prosthetics), he’d come away feeling like his whole body was covered in grime. Still, the alternative was worse—and the face Hughes pulled gave him the answer before the boy replied.

“No, this one’s right out of a pulp mag, so it’s at the coroner’s. Don’t worry, I’ll sneak you in.”

Dr. Jhandir had been afraid of that, but he nodded. “Let’s be off, then.”

The coroner’s office was only a short drive from Dr. Jhandir’s house, in an unnecessarily posh part of town for such a useless institution. As Dr. Jhandir followed Hughes through the building, he kept his chin up and posture straight, looking for all the world like he had every right to be here. Still, he surreptitiously peered around every now and again in search of the coroner, who did not share that opinion. But Dr. Teller was probably (in Dr. Jhandir’s estimation) off drinking somewhere rather than attending to his duties, because he hadn’t turned up by the time Hughes stopped in front of a wooden door with a plaque that read Autopsy Room 3.

When Hughes opened the door to the autopsy room, Dr. Jhandir was surprised to see that the examination table had a long, rectangular box atop it. It was covered with a sheet, but Dr. Jhandir recognized it as one of the new preservation caskets, meant to keep bodies fresh for viewing without the pickling effects of embalming. Quite frankly, he would never have expected that the coroner’s office would shell out for such an expensive device. Certainly, none of the previous murders he’d consulted on had merited one.

“Like I said, this one’s more grisly than you're used to,” Hughes warned as he shut the door behind them and strode over to the table.

“I assure you, I’ll be all right,” Dr. Jhandir replied. “We surgeons see our share of gore, you know.”

But as Hughes carefully pulled back the sheet, Dr. Jhandir felt the blood drain from his face. The man enclosed in the glass preservation casket was young-looking, dark-haired, and of unclear extraction—perhaps Spanish, perhaps Italian, perhaps Syrian—with a complexion not dissimilar to the doctor's own. What the casual observer would notice before any of those things, though, was that the skin of his neck, shoulders, and chest had been removed, exposing the muscles and tendons underneath.

Dr. Jhandir was not a casual observer. He knew this man: Salvio Cobelli, late of Chelsea, and a gambler known to owe money all across the demi-monde. That was why the Jhandirs had chosen him; he was precisely the sort of man whose disappearance would surprise no one—except, of course, if his partially-flayed corpse were to resurface somehow.

Hughes must have noticed the doctor's expression, because he said, “I tried to warn you, sir.”

“Why are you showing me this?” Dr. Jhandir asked weakly. “The poor wretch has all his limbs, so I can’t imagine the case hinges on prosthesis.”

Despite the note of apology he'd heard in Hughes’ voice, the doctor couldn’t help but wonder if this was some kind of trap. But surely, if the police had evidence linking him to Cobelli, he would have been arrested, not brought to the coroner’s office as a consulting expert. Unless, of course, they were trying to trick a confession out of him…

His mind went on like that, back and forth, until Hughes said, “Well, sir, it’s because you wrote that book. None of my boys’ve ever seen anything like this, and you know Ol’ Telly isn’t much use. I'd appreciate any insights you can give me. If it's too gruesome, though, I understand.”

Ah, yes, _The Historical Methods and Uses of Torture_. Dr. Jhandir had in fact written several books, most of them about mechanical prosthetics. But ever since _The Historical Methods and Uses of Torture_ was published, nearly a year ago now, it seemed to be all anyone wanted to ask him about. Celine’s illustrations were likely responsible for so firing up the public imagination over a rather dry and scholarly volume. He didn’t regret writing it, exactly—his wife was a joy to collaborate with, and the research had been invigorating—but he was coming to dislike how much it closed the gap between his public and private lives.

“It’s just startling to see something like this in real life, instead of an old book. I’ll be all right.” As doctor collected himself, he tried to think how Celine would act in similar circumstances. He’d been married for more than a decade now, and he was long past being ashamed to admit that his wife was braver than he was. She would brazen this out with no trouble.

Dr. Jhandir attempted to keep that mindset as he approached the preservation casket. It was a remarkable device, but the police obviously hadn't found Cobelli's body immediately after Celine dumped it. Instead of preventing decay, the casket was preserving the corpse as it appeared a day, perhaps two, after death. And it was intact, so clearly no autopsy had been performed as of yet.

Dr. Jhandir examined the cadaver for a long moment before he spoke up. It was crucial that he appeared as though he was seeing it for the first time.

“Look at the line where the skin stops, how smooth it is,” he said finally. “If your murderer had been interrupted, that line wouldn't be so neat. For some reason, he only intended to flay his victim this much. May I see the skin that was removed?”

Hughes had taken out a small notebook and was scribbling in it as Dr. Jhandir spoke, his face contorted into the intense expression of one to whom literary endeavors did not come easily. He kept at it after Dr. Jhandir fell silent, but when the scratching of his pencil finally ceased, he looked up with a grimace.

“We don’t have the skin. Probably the rats got at it before we found the body.”

Dr. Jhandir’s nose wrinkled with disgust at the grisly supposition, but it was more or less what he had expected. In fact, Salvio Cobelli’s flayed skin was currently being gnawed up by a tank of hide beetles that Celine doted on like they were pets.

“I could tell you more if I could see it, perhaps. Was his back skinned as well?”

“Aye, sir, to about the same place.”

“Then I think it likely that the killer removed the skin piecemeal, rather than all at once. Everything I’ve read suggests that skinning a man front and back is exceptionally difficult.” In fact, the skin had been removed in one piece—although that _was_ difficult, Dr. Jhandir was a practiced expert—but since he couldn’t see the cadaver’s back, “intuiting” that Cobelli had been flayed flawlessly might have raised suspicion. “Unless you found him in a pool of his own blood, he was killed and then moved; flaying is supposed to be a messy business. At a glance, I’d wager blood loss as the most likely cause of death, too, though preservation caskets do tend to make bodies look pale. May I disengage the casket? I want to get a closer look.”

Hughes shook his head, looking regretful. ‘Fraid not, sir. I’d have to get Telly to sign off on an outside expert doing the autopsy, and there’s no chance in hell with a case like this. Sorry.”

Both men turned at the sound of a scoff from the doorway. Dr. Jonas Teller, the city coroner, stood there glaring. “Captain, remove this unauthorized civilian from my autopsy room.”

“He’s here on my say-so, Dr. Teller, sir,” Hughes replied.

“That’s all right, Captain,” Dr. Jhandir said. “I’m not sure there’s much more I can tell you, and it would be a terrible embarrassment for the coroner’s office if they had to bring in civilian surgeons to solve murders for them. No doubt Dr. Teller will be able to provide just as much insight.”

Although the coroner was, technically, a doctor, Dr. Jhandir had never known him to maintain a practice. His election to the coronership was, therefore, entirely due to his willingness to be a gear in one of the political machines that vied for control of the sky city. Such a man deserved no consideration whatsoever.

Dr. Jhandir turned to Teller, smiled thinly, and added, “I do so hope you were listening long enough to take notes, so you’ll have something intelligent to say. Good day.”

Teller was a tall man, with graying blond hair and the build of someone who’d spent his school days playing sports when he should have been studying medicine. He attempted to loom as they left the autopsy room, but Dr. Jhandir wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“I could have you done for tampering with evidence,” Teller muttered when it was clear that his attempt at physical intimidation was ineffective, but Dr. Jhandir knew a bluff when he heard one, so he continued on as though he hadn’t heard the threat.

Teller’s bullheaded stupidity had buoyed Dr. Jhandir somewhat—he couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather have attempting to examine Cobelli’s body—but the fact that there was a body to examine in the first place meant that even that was a cold comfort, and his nerves ate at him as Hughes drove him home. Once he was inside and the captain had pulled away (after making him swear that he wouldn’t tell a soul what he’d seen in the autopsy room), Dr. Jhandir’s calm facade crumbled completely. He raced up the stairs to Celine’s studio, where he found his wife working on a painting of a man with flayed arms, the missing skin wound around his wrists like shackles.

It wasn’t Cobelli. Celine wanted to produce a whole series of paintings of partially-skinned men. _Portraits of St. Bartholomew_ , she called it, apparently after some Christian saint who’d been flayed to death. Cobelli had been their third model; this painting was of their first.

“Celine!” Dr. Jhandir practically gasped. She turned, and the fervent look she often wore while painting withered when she saw his face.

“What happened?” She set her palette down and approached him, stopping just short of making physical contact. Often, he would be grateful for that consideration, but today he closed the gap himself and pulled her into an embrace. He held her there for a moment before he spoke.

“You’re going to have to scrap that painting,” he said first, because it was in his field of vision, but he recognized that that was no kind of explanation. ”Hughes didn’t want me to examine a cadaver’s prosthetics. The police found Cobelli’s body somehow, and he wanted my opinion because of our book.”

Celine’s hands flew to her mouth, but she didn’t look scared. Quite the contrary—her eyes sparkled as she looked up at him, and he could swear that her hands were concealing a smile.

“Oh, I was hoping they’d find it!” she exclaimed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Dr. Jhandir staggered away as though he'd been stabbed. "You _what_?"

"I left Cobelli where I knew he'd be found," Celine said enthusiastically. She paused when she took in the look on her husband's face, but all she added was, "Oh, nowhere near here, don't worry! I certainly don’t intend to get caught."

“Then why?” he asked, too stunned to even shout. “Why would you something so dangerous?”

“Oh, come on, it’s hardly _dangerous_. Just a bit of harmless excitement. You’ve said yourself that the police are a bunch of useless fools, and now they asked you—of all the surgeons in the city!—to help them find the killer. Clearly, they have no idea. I couldn’t have hoped for better!”

 _Just a bit of harmless excitement_. Dr. Jhandir still felt like the world was spinning off its axis, but that phrase of Celine’s helped his mental gears mesh again, and he realized he recognized this feeling. It was the same sense of unthinkable betrayal he’d had when Vernon Massey had confessed to double-crossing the London rebellion, all those years ago.

Placing the feeling gave the doctor something to cling to, and fury rose up to replace his blank panic.

“Have you gone completely mad? We could be _hanged_ , Celine!” he hissed.

"No we couldn’t. I don’t think this state has hanged anybody since before we moved here. It’s electrocution now.” 

Dr. Jhandir threw his hands in the air. “Electrocuted, then, as if that’s better!”

“That was a joke. Relax.” When he just glared at her, she continued: “They’re not going to hang us, or electrocute us, or anything else. The police can barely catch men who kill their own wives. They’ll never come within a mile of suspecting us of this. If they can even identify the body, they’ll just assume it was about his gambling debts.”

Celine stepped forward and tried to take her husband’s hand, but he shook her off.

“Get your hands off of me. How _dare_ you’d take such an enormous risk without so much as a warning? It would serve you right to be executed, but you’re playing with my life too, you know.”

“Anil…” The excitement that had been animating her finally drained away, and she stepped back again, giving the doctor room to breathe. She sighed, then said, “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to take my art—our art—to the next level. The police are baffled, or Hughes wouldn’t have brought you in. And once the papers get wind of this, we’ll be the talk of the city, without any danger of getting found out. We just get to sit back and watch everybody scramble. It’s… I thought you'd be excited.”

"Why would you think something so daft?"

Celine’s expression sharpened into irritation, as though _she_ had any right to be angry with _him_. "In retrospect, I really have no idea."

Before Dr. Jhandir could respond, there was a knock at the front door. He and Celine stared at each other for a startled moment, but she recovered first and went down to open it. The doctor hung back on the stairs, fear warring with curdled triumph inside him. Surely that knock was the police; if he and Celine were executed for this, at least they'd go to the chair knowing that her folly had landed them there.

"Grace! It's so good to see you!" Celine exclaimed from the front hall. Dr. Jhandir could hear a shrill note of relief in her voice. "Forgive the mess; we're between maids again."

Dr. Jhandir knew that was intended as a jab at him, but if the girls they hired didn't do such sloppy work, he wouldn't have to keep firing them. He ignored it and set his face into a calm, neutral expression before he went to greet Grace.

The women were entering the parlor by the time he caught up with them, Grace demurring that she couldn't even tell the house hadn't been cleaned. Perhaps she couldn't. Certainly, every time he'd visited her apartment, it had been covered with animal dander. 

"Good evening, Grace," he said once she fell silent. Although he was sure his tone was perfectly pleasant, Grace looked back and forth between them, frowning.

"Am I early or something?"

"Oh, no," Celine assured her, cool as anything. "We're just a little harried because we lost track of the time. Kettle’s not even on yet. Make yourself at home while I start the tea.”

Celine went out to the kitchen, leaving Dr. Jhandir alone with Grace. That may have been a punishment—Grace was Celine’s friend, not his, and he had always found small talk difficult—but perhaps Celine was just more flustered than she let on. In any case, Grace must have felt the awkwardness too, because rather than try to make conversation, she focused on arranging the parcels she’d brought (two brown paper bags and a newspaper) on a table.

At any rate, Celine was back soon enough, and Dr. Jhandir quickly excused himself. Rather than going up to his study to think about how to deal with Celine’s betrayal, though, he lingered outside the parlor door to eavesdrop on her conversation with Grace. If she was mad enough to leave a body for the police to find, she was mad enough to confess to a friend, and Dr. Jhandir did not need any more surprises today. 

“What’s in the bags?” Celine asked once the doctor was out of the room. “Felicity said she was going to send something over, but she was awfully coy about it.”

“Yeah, she’s been really keen for you to try this new Congo bar recipe she’s working on. I have no idea why she tried to be all secretive. But, more importantly… Ta-da! The new _Odysseys,_ featuring 'Flirting with Death' by yours truly. Just came out today!"

"You know you didn't have to buy this for me," Celine said, laughing. "I would have picked it up next time I was at the newsstand."

"But that wouldn't have been until tomorrow, or even—heaven forbid—Thursday! I would’ve died of waiting.”

“Well, I’m not sure I’ll get the full effect if I read it with you hovering over me, but I’ll—”

Dr. Jhandir startled at the sudden scream of the teakettle. After a momentary flash of relief that no one saw him, he realized that he _would_ be seen if he remained here: Celine would catch him listening in when she came out to make the tea. He scrambled halfway up the staircase and remained there, trying not to breathe, until he heard Celine return from the kitchen and close the parlor door again. And even then, he waited another few minutes, just to be certain. When he crept back down the stairs, the hall was empty, so he resumed his position outside the parlor.

“—seen today’s _Evening_ _Star_ , I was going to ask,” was the first thing he heard Grace say, “but I know you haven’t been by a newsstand. Take a look at this!”

There was a silent moment, then Celine said, “Oh, my. Do you think it’s real? There’s no picture, and the _Star_ isn’t exactly…”

“It’s a rag, yeah. I mean, ‘Skinned Body Discovered in Chelsea!’ Jesus.”—Dr. Jhandir sucked in a sharp breath, then stood statue-still for a moment in fear that the women had heard him, but Grace continued—“It’s probably fake, but I thought you might be interested in it for artistic reasons.”

“Wouldn’t it be exciting if it was real, though?” Celine asked with a laugh. Outside the parlor, Dr. Jhandir poised himself to either burst in or flee the house; even he wasn’t sure which. “Actual murders are always so banal. It would be fascinating if there were real criminals out there with this kind of artistic sense.”

“Really? I mean, I love writing about baroque crimes and evil geniuses and what have you, but I’m okay if it all stays on the page. If there were real maniacs running around acting out my stories or your paintings…” Grace trailed off.

“No, I understand,” Celine replied smoothly. “Why, I’ll probably be eating my words if this does turn out to be true.”

Dr. Jhandir felt like he might explode from nerves if this conversation went on any longer. He raised his hand and knocked on the parlor door to announce his presence. As he opened the door, he said as calmly as he could manage: “Sorry to interrupt, but will you be staying for dinner, Grace? You’re welcome to; I just need to know how many places to set.”

“Thanks, but I can’t,” Grace said, to the doctor’s immense relief. “Charles is sick, and I really should get home to him. To be honest, I would’ve cancelled altogether, but I wanted to give Celine my new story. Oh, and there are Congo bars from Felicity. You’ll like them!”

“All right. I hope your… I hope Charles feels better soon,” Dr. Jhandir said, unable to recall if Charles was Grace’s dog or one of her cats. “Have a pleasant evening.”

“Thanks for the magazine!” Celine added, hugging Grace goodbye. “I’ll ring you when I’ve read your story. It’ll be soon, promise. Give Charles a pat for me.”

“Absolutely! And you’d better not be too long reading that story, or I’ll keep turning up here and there’ll be no getting rid of me. For now, though, I gotta run!”

Dr. Jhandir stayed in the parlor as Celine walked her friend to the door. Grace’s copy of the _Evening Star_ was still on the table, and he read its front page story in fascinated horror. Despite the paper’s reputation, the details of Cobelli’s murder were identical to what the police believed. The story cited as its source an anonymous member of the Coroner’s Office, which was probably accurate; there was no way someone like Teller could run a very tight ship.

“You really will like the bars. They’re a touch sweet for me,” Celine said from beside him. He jumped; he hadn’t even heard her enter the room. “This whole thing is really scaring you, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

She fixed him with a knowing look for a moment, but then her expression softened. “I honestly didn’t mean to worry you, and I don’t want either of us to get caught. I still think that perhaps you’re overreacting, but I should have talked to you first rather than just springing this on you. I’m sorry.”

In other circumstances, Dr. Jhandir would often be willing to accept an olive branch like that, but he couldn’t simply forgive a betrayal of this magnitude. “You shouldn’t have done it at all.”

“Well, I can’t undo it, but I’ll never do it again, at least.” He didn’t reply, so Celine held up one hand and continued: “I swear. I’ll never intentionally leave a body where another soul will find it. All right?”

“See that you don’t,” the doctor said, not looking at her. “Since Grace won’t be joining us for dinner, I trust that you’ll be able to forage for yourself. There’s gosht stew in the icebox. I’ll be in my study.”

And he turned and walked out of the parlor without waiting for a reply.


	3. Chapter 3

Over the next fortnight, Dr. Jhandir’s schedule conspired to make it very difficult to avoid his wife. It was rare for him to have two full weeks that didn’t include a trip out of town for a surgery or a conference or the like, but, somehow, there was no one on the planet who urgently required his presence. Of course, he had his regular work to attend to in Manhattan, but he still had to come home at night.

He’d tried staying at his club, but practically all the gossip there was about Cobelli, whose death still filled inches of newsprint every day, despite the lack of new evidence. And the members of the Physicians' Club seemed just as captivated—every man there was eager to expound at length at how, in his learned medical opinion, such a murder might have been committed and the killer escaped justice. Only a few of them were willing to countenance that the skill involved in flaying a man so precisely might mean that the perpetrator was a doctor, and none had indicated that they suspected Dr. Jhandir, though he was surely the most eminent surgeon among them.

Still, all the speculation was intolerable—what if someone _did_ think to accuse him?—and it was made worse by Dr. Teller’s presence at the club. The city coroner was one of those gauche political animals who maintained memberships to multiple clubs, and he rarely deigned to visit this one. It wasn’t as though he had anything to contribute to medical discussions. But since Celine’s bout of insanity, Teller had started showing up to talk about the murder, no doubt hoping to pick up something intelligent he could pass off as his own idea. Worse, his closeness to the case meant that the other members were practically falling over themselves to talk to him. Dr. Jhandir certainly didn’t want to be the center of attention, but that didn’t mean he could stomach watching his clubmates pretend to enjoy Teller’s company.

Facing Celine was scarcely preferable to facing Teller, but he had to sleep _somewhere_. Dr. Jhandir started retiring early, so that by the time Celine came in, he would either be asleep or be performing a credible impression of the same. He had never been so grateful that they’d chosen fashionable twin beds. During his waking hours at home, he kept to his study as much as possible to avoid bumping into her in the halls. 

For two weeks, Celine seemed to understand that shutting himself up in there meant that he wanted to be alone. The isolation must have been getting to her, though—she had always needed more company than he did—because she eventually came knocking.

“May I come in? I need to speak with you.” She sounded worried, but he wasn’t inclined to feel for her.

“Go _away_ , Celine. We have nothing to discuss.”

“Anil, please let me in.” She kept rapping at the door as she spoke. “It’s important. Please?”

Dr. Jhandir stood with a huff and threw the door open, only to wince as the doorknob smacked into the wall. He hoped it didn’t leave a mark on the wallpaper.

“Whatever’s so important, make it fast,” he said icily. “I’m much too busy for this.”

“Have you seen the _Herald_ _?_ ” she asked. She looked frazzled, and Dr. Jhandir couldn’t help but feel a bit smug. Perhaps she wasn’t finding all the hullabaloo as enjoyable as she thought she would.

“Today’s, you mean? No, I haven’t. I stopped reading it altogether because they seem determined to retread every detail of Cobelli’s murder. My nerves couldn’t handle it.” 

That was mostly a lie. Regardless of his nerves, he made a point to purchase every paper that ran a story about Cobelli. That wasn’t in itself suspicious behavior—plenty of people must have been doing the same, or the papers would stop running the damned things. However, the doctor made sure to hide his reading habits from Celine. She was presumably following the case closely as well, blithely unconcerned that any new development could be a step closer to the electrocution chamber But she didn’t need to know how much interest he was taking.

He hadn’t been to a newsstand yet today, though. Celine was going to help some artist friend of hers set up a gallery show that afternoon, and he had planned to wait until she left so she wouldn’t see him with the papers.

Celine didn’t question the veracity of that statement, but said instead, “Then you may want to sit down.” When he just kept staring levelly at her, she sighed and held up her copy of the _Manhattan Herald_. 

 **_MORE SKINNER VICTIMS DISCOVERED_** , the front page blared in huge text, and Dr. Jhandir suddenly felt dizzy. He wished he hadn’t been so stubborn about refusing to sit. He snatched the paper from Celine’s hands and read on, horrified.

 

> _Manhattan-in-the-Air, yesterday.  Police unearthed two more victims of the Manhattan Skinner. Each was found partially-skinned in the undercity dumps - one missing the skin on his legs, the other on his chest and stomach - leaving little doubt as to the perpetrator of these heinous murders. Based on the available evidence, the police believe that both victims were killed before the still-unidentified body discovered a fortnight ago. That body_

—Dr. Jhandir stopped reading as the paper started to retell Cobelli's murder yet again.

“Now, Anil I—”

“ _What did you do?_ ” Dr. Jhandir demanded. Without giving her time to answer, or to finish whatever thought he’d interrupted, he continued: “You really are trying to get us killed! Is this _exciting_ for you?”

"I didn't tell them anything!" she protested, then broke eye contact to look at her feet and added more quietly, "The police found these bodies themselves."

“Why should I believe that?”

“I promised you I wouldn’t do anything else risky. That’s why. When I saw the newspaper, I rushed home to tell you, because I knew what you’d think and I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“And why is there anything for me _to_ hear? I thought you said there was no way they’d make any headway in this case,” he said nastily. He should have felt more scared, he knew, but his anger at Celine’s brazen stupidity was overriding his panic. “If they’re suddenly capable of turning up victims without your assistance, how many more are they going to find? We’ve been careful as can be, but when enough corpses pile up, they’re bound to stumble across _some_ evidence.”

Celine perked up at that, looking as though she’d just had an idea. “They’re not going to find any more,” she said, sounding sure of herself again. “Think about it! They’ve been combing the dumps since they found Cobelli, right? If they haven’t been able to connect any of the other bodies they must have seen—plus the who-knows-how-many that other people’ve tipped over the edge—then they’re only looking for a very specific _modus operandi_. And since Bausch and Whatshisname are the only other people we’ve flayed in ages, the “Manhattan Skinner” has only killed three people, as far as anyone will ever know.”

Dr. Jhandir shook his head. “You were confident before that they wouldn’t find anything, and look where that’s landed us. I think it’s foolish to be optimistic at this juncture. But then again...” He looked her up and down with a deliberateness that left no doubt as to his meaning. “It would be best—” 

He was interrupted by a knock at the front door.

“Were you expecting visitors today?”

Celine shook her head, her eyes wide. “No. Were you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

They went downstairs together, close but not quite touching. Dr. Jhandir’s heart nearly hammered its way out of his chest when he looked through the peephole and saw a pair of uniformed police officers. His expression when he pulled away must have communicated the situation to Celine, because she suddenly went white as a calla lily. When he made no move to open the door, she took a deep breath and did it herself, leaving him standing behind the open door as she greeted the interlopers.

“Good morning, officers,” she said with a brittle smile. “What can I do for you?”

“Good morning, ma’am,” said the smaller of the two. “I’m sergeant Quinn, and this is officer Ebner. Are you Celine Jhandir?”

“In the flesh.”

“Then you’re under arrest on suspicion of the murders of three unidentified men.”

“I’ll need to see your warrant,” Dr. Jhandir said, stepping out from behind the door. “I find it extremely difficult to believe you have cause to arrest my wife.”

He only realized after he’d said it what a gamble it was—if they had a warrant to arrest Celine, odds were on that they had one for him too. But the sergeant just nodded  as he pulled two pieces of folded paper from his breast pocket.

“Here you are, sir. The top one is the arrest warrant, and the bottom one is a warrant to search this property. I know this is difficult, but please don’t interfere further,” he said dispassionately. The other officer (who was noticeably younger in addition to being half a foot taller) looked ready to spring on Dr. Jhandir if he made the slightest move toward Celine.

The doctor was no legal scholar, but the top one, the arrest warrant, looked to be in order until he got to the signature at the bottom.

“Dr. Teller?! What the hell is he playing at?”

“Couldn’t say, sir,” the sergeant answered, still stone-faced. “Ma’am, if you would?”

Celine wordlessly held her hands out in front of her, but the junior officer pulled them behind her back and shackled them there. Dr. Jhandir rested his hand on her shoulder and held her gaze for a moment before the officer marched her out the door toward the police wagon parked in the drive. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t be construed as incriminating.

“You know I’m authorized to search your house,” the sergeant said once Celine had disappeared into the wagon. “I can do it with or without your help, but it’ll be less disruptive if you cooperate.”

“I actually haven’t had a chance to read over the search warrant. Under the circumstances, I’m sure you understand. A moment.” He was really just looking for the magistrate’s signature at the bottom, and sure enough, Teller’s name was there as well. He handed both warrants back. “All right. Come in, and don’t mess up the place too badly.”

If the sergeant heard that last request, he didn’t acknowledge it as he stepped into the foyer. “Just stay where I can see you and don’t touch anything unless I tell you to, please.”

To his credit, though, he wasn’t too disruptive as he searched. Dr. Jhandir still had to fight the urge to tidy in his wake, but it could have been much worse. Still, the doctor was tense when it came time to search the basement laboratory. If the sergeant managed to trigger the concealed door that led to the _other_ workroom, Dr. Jhandir would have no choice but to kill him and flee. But Celine had concocted the door mechanism, and though the sergeant was thorough, he was also plodding. Unimaginative. He never even came close, but Dr. Jhandir was nonetheless relieved when they moved on.

Unfortunately, when they went up to Celine’s studio, the last canvas she’d been working on—what was supposed to be her first _Portrait of St. Bartholomew_ —was in full view. The sergeant actually gasped when he saw it, the first time Dr. Jhandir had seen him display any emotion other than chilly professionalism. As usual, Celine had altered her subject’s features, but the flayed arms were a damning detail now that Bausch’s body had been unearthed.

The sergeant made a note in a little flip-top notebook and took the painting off the easel to collect as evidence. His search of the rest of the studio was even more interminably thorough than he’d been up to that point, but he didn’t find anything else incriminating. In fact, the painting was the only thing he collected from the whole house. Dr. Jhandir didn’t make a habit of leaving evidence lying about.

Once the sergeant had left, Dr. Jhandir locked himself in his study to plan his next move. It wouldn’t do to rush into anything. He was part of a dangerous game now, and if he put a foot wrong, it could spell disaster for Celine. For that matter, it could spell disaster for _him_. She had set herself on this path, after all, and he had just been dragged unwillingly behind. In a way, it served her right. Still, he couldn’t fathom why they hadn’t arrested him as well. He had to assume that he was under suspicion.

Eventually, he decided that if he wanted answers, he had no choice: He had to go see Teller.  



	4. Chapter 4

Dr. Jhandir held his head high and looked straight ahead as he strode down the halls of the Manhattan-in-the-Air coroner’s office. Unaccompanied by an officer, he wasn’t supposed to be in here, but he walked like he owned the place and no one stopped him. By the time Dr. Teller’s secretary looked up, he had swept past her.

“Sir, you can’t—” she started to say, but he was already through the door to the inner office.

Teller was alone in his office. He looked momentarily surprised at the interruption, but then smiled.

“Oh, Dr. Jhandir! Margery should have told me you were on your way in. Go on, sit down.”

Dr. Jhandir didn’t sit. The smugness of Teller’s expression immediately made Dr. Jhandir want to throttle him, but, as there was no possibility he’d get away with that, he settled for looming over the desk. He wasn’t interested in Teller’s pretense that this was just a friendly chat.

“What do you think you’re doing, arresting my wife?” Dr. Jhandir demanded.

“She came up as a viable suspect in the inquest, of course.” Teller was doing a surprisingly competent job of keeping his tone level. If Dr. Jhandir couldn’t see the coroner’s face, he might have assumed that Teller was as dispassionate as he sounded. “Several of the illustrations in your torture book are suspiciously close to what was done to those poor bastards, and that was before Sgt. Quinn found that painting of one of the new bodies.”

“Do you seriously believe that I wouldn’t notice if my wife was going around killing people?”

“Is that a confession?” Teller said, still deceptively mild. Dr. Jhandir fixed him with a flat, unamused look, but Teller laughed. “Just a joke! It came out in the inquest that you’d never seen the first body before the last time you intruded here, and that it turned your stomach. I’d have expected more from a man who can write something like _The History of Torture_ , but it’s hardly suspicious behavior.”

Dr. Jhandir closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. He hadn’t even realized how tense he still was about the possibility of being accused himself until he heard Teller dismiss it. Thank goodness for Hughes, who must’ve testified in his favor. He’d bet that Teller, despite his jovial demeanor now, had been champing at the bit to accuse him as well as Celine, but couldn’t risk a hero like Hughes taking the stand and making him look a fool.

If Teller noticed Dr. Jhandir’s relief, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he said, “But honestly, doctor, you’ve been married long enough to know that a woman can get up to plenty under her husband's nose."

"The painting is hardly evidence," Dr. Jhandir said, refusing to dignify that with a response. "If that's the best you've got, you may as well let her go now and save yourself the embarrassment of a trial."

“Not that it's any business of yours, but honestly, I don’t think we have enough evidence to convict Mrs. Jhandir.”

“Then why—”

“But it’s more than enough to convince the good people of this city that she’s guilty. The papers will see to that. Even if— _when,_ fair enough—she’s acquitted, you’ll never have any peace as long as you remain in MITA. In the eyes of the public, she’ll be a murderer, our very own Skinner, and you’ll be the pitiable fool who married her. How long do you think you could handle that kind of scrutiny? Sooner or later, you’ll crack and flee back to London or wherever it is you’re from. This is my city; you shouldn’t have tried to interfere with my cases.”

Dr. Jhandir was aghast. _Teller didn’t know_. He didn’t even _suspect_ , and yet, in his bullheaded stupidity, he had managed to land closer to the truth than anyone had in nearly two decades.

"Of course," Teller continued, "If you left the city quietly, right away, the charges against your wife would just… disappear.”

“So it’s blackmail, then?” Dr. Jhandir asked. He sounded more shocked than he meant to, but only because he was so thrown by the depths of Teller’s idiocy and luck. “You’re willing to put an innocent woman on trial for these ghastly murders just to force me out of the city?”

“Come on, don’t be melodramatic. It’s not _blackmail_ ; you’re entirely free to make your own choices here. I just wanted you to be able to save yourself, oh, the embarrassment of a trial.”

“We can’t be bullied out of Manhattan! Certainly not with these absurd false accusations.”

“Then I’ll see you at Mrs. Jhandir’s trial—though my door is always open if you want to reconsider before them.” Then Teller looked past Dr. Jhandir to his closed door and shouted, “Margery!”

Dr. Jhandir pushed past the secretary as she opened the door, fuming at being dismissed like that. He didn’t need an escort out of the damn building. What he _needed_ was Teller’s head on a platter, but that wasn’t feasible at the moment unless he wanted to get locked up too. On the other hand, though, Teller being too arrogant and stupid to realize that he’d more-or-less caught the real Skinner meant that there had to be a way to free Celine before her reputation was ruined.

He just didn’t have any idea yet what it was.

When Dr. Jhandir got home, he pulled the lever that electrified the iron fence surrounding his property. Once the news of Celine’s arrest broke, he was sure his house would be swarmed with reporters and gawkers, and he wanted to deter them as much as possible. He usually didn’t bother to turn it on, in case the current hurt the edges of his lawn. 

He went upstairs to his study to ponder his next move, but as soon as he sat down, he thought he heard someone moving around on the main floor. For a moment, he was frozen with fear, but no, it was probably just some overly-enterprising reporter, and the only room of interest to them was in the basement, which was locked up tight. As quietly as he could, he retrieved his pistol from its locked drawer. Dealing _creatively_ with an intruder would draw too much scrutiny, but it should still be easy to claim self-defense over a simple shooting.

Dr. Jhandir could hear voices in the parlor as he eased his way back down the stairs. He scowled. Multiple intruders would be much more complicated to deal with. He was momentarily too distracted with cursing his ill luck to be cautious about where he stepped, and a stair creaked under his foot.

“Anil? Are you home?” Grace Whitcomb called from the parlor. Dr. Jhandir let out a frustrated huff of breath and took his finger off the pistol’s trigger. When he got to the parlor, Grace was indeed there, along with her sisters Patience and Felicity as well as Patience’s husband Homer. Patience, Homer, and Grace were sitting down, conspiratorially close, with Felicity standing some distance away, looking like she’d been pacing.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were intruders!” It occurred to the doctor as soon as he said it that they _were_ intruders—he certainly hadn’t invited them in, and just because the Whitcombs were friends with his wife didn’t mean they could just come and go from his house as they pleased. Still, he carefully set down his pistol on an end table.

Grace gave an apologetic wince. “Sorry for barging in like this. Celine gave me a spare key and I—”

“Celine isn’t here right now,” Dr. Jhandir interrupted. He was too emotionally drained to bother being polite to people who had, essentially, broken into his house.

“We know that!” Felicity said hotly. “Why do you think we’re here? Some cretinous ass is trying to frame her for murder!”

“How did you hear about that? How did you”—he gestured toward Homer and Patience—“get here from London so quickly?”

Dr. Jhandir knew that Teller wasn’t the type to back down when he thought he had the upper hand. Since Dr. Jhandir had no intention of quietly fleeing from Manhattan like a cockroach caught in the light, Teller would make good on his threat to publicize Celine’s arrest. Dr. Jhandir just didn’t think it would happen so soon.

“An ex-beau of mine was at the inquest, and he rang me up as soon as he got out. And a good thing, too!” Felicity rounded on the doctor. “Were _you_ ever going to tell us, or did you forget that you’re not the only person who cares about her?!”

“Felicity…” Patience laid a hand on her younger sister’s arm. “Focus on the real enemy here. Anil is as upset as we are, and the inquest just ended.”

Once Felicity had subsided, Patience added, “We were already in town for a visit, luckily. Didn’t Celine tell you?”

“It must have slipped her mind,” Dr. Jhandir replied flatly. Ordinarily, Celine did keep him apprised of her friends’ comings and goings, despite the fact that he did not care a whit.

After a moment of tense silence, Homer spoke up: “It’s a good thing we _are_ visiting! We need to think of a way to help her, and the more of us there are coming with ideas, the better. I suppose a jailbreak is out of the question?” 

Dr. Jhandir must have looked shocked (though Felicity’s expression suggested that she liked that idea very much), because Homer shook his head and added, “No, no, we need to figure out a way to clear her name. Making her party to an actual crime won’t do her any good.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was the rest of them.

“Anil, do you have any idea who might want to do something like this to Celine?” Grace asked. She shook her head. “It’s horrible to think that someone is using her own art to try and paint her as a killer.”

“I know who it is.” Dr. Jhandir was happy to have someone to complain to, and besides, he found the Whitcombs’ misplaced confidence in Celine comforting, despite himself. “The city coroner, a Dr. Jonas Teller. He hates me, and he’s cooked up these false charges to try and get Celine and me to leave Manhattan! He wants the papers to hound us out of the city! I know that sounds ridiculous, but he’s a perfectly ridiculous man!”

He expected Felicity to yell at him again, but she said, “No, I believe you. I’ve heard quite a bit about Dr. Teller, and this seems like exactly the kind of stunt he’d pull. That damn heel!”

“What if we just told the truth about him and Celine?” Grace suggested. “If he’s trying to disgrace her in the papers, talking to the papers might be the best way to fight back. I bet the art press will be up in arms if we can convince them that she’s being framed just because of the subjects she paints.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Dr. Jhandir said. “Teller has the backing of his political machine for getting the word out. I don’t think the five of us can counter that kind of force.”

“Then we play that up too!” Felicity countered. She started to pace again. “Damn, but the people of MITA are sick of political corruption. A whole machine trying to frame an innocent woman? Plenty of papers will eat that up. And since I happen to have an invitation to the _Times’_ charity gala this weekend, I can start working on people there.”

Grace added, “I don’t have those kinds of connections, but I know a few people in mag publishing. I’ll reach out just in case they can help.”

“I’m certain I could get the scientific journals on our side”—Dr. Jhandir had spent so many years filling their columns by advocating for mechanical prosthetics that he was something of a niche celebrity in those circles—“but like Grace’s fiction-writing friends, they likely won’t have much pull with the general papers. I don’t trust the general papers anyway. If I tried to talk to a reporter, chances are he’d twist my words to make Celine look guilty.”

“What if Pat and I played assistant for you?” Homer asked. “We’d pre-interview reporters to make sure they’re not trying anything yellow. Neither of us know anyone in the Manhattan journalism scene, but nor can we just sit around and not do anything to help Celine.”

“That… would be acceptable.” The Whitcombs’ faith in Manhattan’s free press, like their faith in Celine, was reassuring despite being unfounded. “But you’d better go before the swarm of tabloid vultures descends. Keep me apprised of your progress if you can.”

They agreed and said their goodbyes. Both Grace and Felicity insisted on hugging the doctor before they left. Outside, a few reporters were already beginning to gather. Despite the Whitcombs’ plan, Dr. Jhandir was still so upset that he couldn’t even enjoy the scream when one of the reporters ignored the warning signs on his electrified fence.


	5. Chapter 5

Dr. Jhandir remained inside his house for five days after the inquest rather than face the reporters massing beyond his fence. He usually preferred staying home to going out, but being forced into seclusion by the rabble outside was galling. To add to the injustice, he had to cancel a surgery and a lecture via radiogram. The responses he got were polite, but the doctor could read between the lines of their writers’ concern for his plight to the pity underneath.

The very worst part of his isolation, though, was that he had little way of finding out how well the Whitcombs’ plans to counter Teller’s smear job were going. It wasn’t as though he could just pop out to the newsstand to see whose side the papers were taking. Nor had Homer and Patience been able to smuggle in any sympathetic reporters. Dr. Jhandir had assented to one interview via radiogram, but it was a disaster. The awkwardness of manipulating the radiograph’s piano keys made it next to useless for complex, nuanced communication. He’d burned the printed messages so he didn’t have a reminder of how badly he’d failed.

On the second night, the crowd of reporters thinned out, as some of them presumably realized that he was not coming out and decided on sleep as the better option. (Dr. Jhandir himself wasn’t getting much rest; every little sound his house made at night might have been someone breaking in.) They were back in force the next day, but by the fourth night, Dr. Jhandir’s street was empty of bodies shortly after sundown. He waited through one more day of the siege, but when the street emptied out again on the fifth night, he dared to take a drive.

Walking might have been better for shaking off his terrible sense of confinement, but he couldn’t take the risk he’d be recognized and accosted. That also meant avoiding the handful of newsstands that were open so late—if his picture was in the papers, the news-sellers were more likely to recognize his face than most people. He stopped at every unmanned mechanical newsvendor he saw, though, building up quite a stack on his passenger seat and disregarding the danger that the cheap ink would stain his upholstery.

Dr. Jhandir considered trying to drive to Grace or Felicity’s to talk in person about their progress, but realized that he didn’t know their addresses. Besides, he didn’t even know whether either woman was home, and he was loathe to appear pathetic, showing up on their doorsteps unbidden.

Instead, he just drove, until the temptation to read the mass of papers looming in his front seat became overwhelming. Even then, he circled his block once before returning to his garage, just to make sure that there were no lurkers who could sneak through when he opened the gate.

In his parlor, he pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves so as not to stain his fingers and got down to reading. It quickly became apparent that he could sort his cache of newspapers into four piles. The first were the ones he had bought in error—an Italian paper, a Spanish one, and what turned out to be a literary magazine. The ones he couldn’t read both had pictures of Celine on their front pages, but he wasn’t sure what they had to say about her. 

The second pile was the tabloids, the obvious rags, easily identifiable by their small pages. To a one, they framed Celine as a vile murderess, and Dr. Jhandir as a love-blind idiot.

Opinion was more divided in the full-size, respectable papers. Upon sorting them, Dr. Jhandir was pleased to find that there were two more decrying Celine’s arrest as a symptom of governmental corruption than breathlessly reporting on her murders. Perhaps if he scrutinized them more, he’d be able to find some pattern in which newspapers provided which kinds of stories, but staring at newsprint so late into the night was making the words swim in front of his eyes, so he went to bed instead, and slept bady.

He wasn’t planning on taking a drive the following night. As good as being outside felt, it was unwise to leave too frequently. If word somehow got out, reporters would start camping out overnight again, and he’d lose the only escape route he had available. He tried to content himself with the warm pseudo-jungle of his greenhouse, but he was hyperaware of the glass that surrounded him.

Instead, he spent the evening reading over his cache of newspapers again, the same way he’d passed most of the day. He’d brought the relevant ones up to his study for easier reading and note-taking. When the radiograph whirred to life, he nearly fell out of his chair in panic, thinking it was the sound of an intruder. He stood and brushed himself off as he waited for the printer to finish, then ripped the message off with more force than was really necessary.

 

> _JHANDIR--_
> 
> _NEED TO MEET YOU_
> 
> 3 OCLOCK  
> COME ALONE   
> ENTER THRU ALLEY  
> DESTROY THIS MESSAGE
> 
> _J TELLER_

Dr. Jhandir just had time to wonder peevishly how Teller had gotten his radiograph’s alias before the machine started up again. This time, it printed an address, which was at least _something_ to go on, even if Dr. Jhandir didn’t recognize it. It certainly wasn’t the coroner’s office.

This had to be a trap. But what else could Teller want from him? If this was a pretext to arrest him, Teller would have just had the police storm his house in full daylight so the photographers could get clear shots. Similarly, Teller would broadcast any actual evidence he found against Celine, especially since Dr. Jhandir wasn’t complying with his blackmail attempts. Teller wasn’t the type to play down his leverage. No, whatever he wanted, it was too embarrassing to tell the general public, hence the secret meeting. That, in turn, meant that it might be something Dr. Jhandir could use to his advantage, something that could help Celine. He had to know what it was, so he painstakingly typed out a return message:

 

> _I WILL BE THERE_

He put the original message in an unlocked desk drawer. If Teller did try to arrest him (or something worse), it was important that there be some clue to what happened.

Dr. Jhandir was too antsy to even keep looking at newspapers. He armed himself—a gun holster would be too conspicuous, so he tucked a knife and hypodermic syringe into the inside pocket of his jacket, with backups of each, as well as his pistol, in his bag—then paced around his house like a restless spirit until it was time to leave.

The address Teller gave him turned out to be a restaurant in the middle of a block of shops. At 3 A.M., the whole neighborhood was dark, but Dr. Jhandir drove around the block twice to satisfy himself that no one was watching him. Only one car was in the alley—Teller’s, presumably, but he peered into its windows as he passed, just in case. There were two doors that could conceivably lead to the restaurant; the first was locked when he tried it. The second door, though, yielded to him, and he entered without knocking. If this was some kind of trap, an extra second of surprise could be key.

Teller did look a little startled as Dr. Jhandir entered, but at least he was alone. The room itself was just a private dining room, plushly upholstered and heavy with the memory of old cigars. Dr. Jhandir wanted to smoke too, to calm his nerves, but he needed to keep his guard up and his hands free. He still didn’t know what Teller wanted with him.

“So glad you were able to make it!” Teller said, getting up and coming over to shake Dr. Jhandir’s hand. Up close, he looked haggard, with dark circles under his eyes and a crooked tie around his neck. Dr. Jhandir considered that he himself probably didn’t look much better (though he’d never leave home with his tie askew), but still, he couldn’t suppress a smile.

“What’s this about?”

Teller pulled his mouth into what was, for him, a wan smile. “I wanted to see if you’d reconsidered my offer. It looks like this has been hard on you.”

“That’s why you set up a clandestine meeting in the middle of the night?” Dr. Jhandir asked with a scoff.”What absurd dramatics.”

“Well, would you have been able to meet me during the day? I’ve heard what the scene is like outside your house. You’d be trampled to death in the rush of people trying to find out how you married a murderer!”

“The city is interested in more than just my marriage right now,” Dr. Jhandir said as realization dawned. “You didn’t want to try and explain your corruption to the press, did you? I bet they’d _love_ to know about your attempt to blackmail us out of the city.”

Teller seemed to deflate at that. He held up his hands. “Okay, fine. Look, how about a new deal: You and whoever you’ve convinced to slander me stop talking to newsmen, and I’ll let Mrs. Jhandir go—lack of evidence and blab blab blab.”

Dr. Jhandir could smell the blood in the water, so he wasn’t about to be mollified even if it was a way to ensure Celine’s release. “Oh, are your bosses feeling a little too much heat from your abuse of power? Did they set up this meeting over your objections, and you came anyway, like a good little lackey? How humiliating! Well, you can run back to your masters and tell them I can’t be bought off any more than I can be blackmailed.”

“I came here on my own initiative!” Teller shouted, his face red. “No one knows we’re here—not anyone at City Hall, not even my wife. I’m a politician, but I’m no one’s puppet! I just thought we could resolve this to our mutual satisfaction without any further unpleasantness. But if you’re determined to see it through, that’s your choice. I can always push for a conviction.”

Dr. Jhandir put a hand to his chin and turned away from Teller as if in thought. He _was_ trying to think fast, but probably not in the way Teller intended.

“You’re right,” Dr. Jhandir lied as he turned around, keeping his left hand behind his back. “I need to swallow my pride and do what’s best for Celine. If you let her go, I’ll call off my friends. I just don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

“You made the right choice.”

 Teller stepped forward to shake Dr. Jhandir’s hand again, looking relieved. As Teller pumped his right arm, Dr. Jhandir brought his left hand around and injected Teller in the arm with the syringe he was holding. 

Teller only had time to sputter, “The hell are you—” before the paralytic took effect and he crashed to the ground. 


End file.
